Results from first go with SLR

[Rob]

Poor!!.... well sort of poor. The stars came out on the film, but the back ground was not black... more Light blue!!. I think I may have taken the shots too early? (pre 11.15pm).

I had 4 shots from 10 that actually came out!. The north cross & vega mostly. Each taken with 25 seconds @ f1.8. The house (partly in the shot) looks almost yellow???????.

Thoughts?.

Taking a re think on buying a Fuji finepix S5500 with part manual controls that allow a 15 sec exp. To use as a family camera also

Rob

[Astroman]

The processing of film comes out huge in the end. It's nearly useless to give it to the drugstore automated machine place. You need to take it to a reputable developer-some camera shop or other. Tell them it's astrophotos and the sky should be grey, not black. This may help.

[Rob]

Hi I did... she spent time to develop the film

[AndyMac]

Remind me, what film did you use, Rob - and where did you get it developed? Are these colours you're getting from a print or a scanned negative/transparency?

[Rob]

Andy it was a 400 Tesco jobby (wanted to make sure the camera worked!)

[AndyMac]

Quite possibly the film was responsible for the funny colours, Rob. There again, if it was a print film and the colours were in the resultant prints, it's even more possible that the fault was at the printing stage. Most finishers haven't a clue what an astrophoto should look like. :?

[OXO]

Rob if you have a jessopes near you they do quite a good job from what i have seen in the past from people i know that use film and process at jessope's. I would agree with Andy that they didnt know what they were doing or even forgot they were astro pic's..

Better luck next time matey.

James

[Astroman]

Rob, you could still take your negs to a good place and have them try. The negs should still be OK. It's harder to screw them up.

[AndyMac]

Your best bet is to have the negatives scanned onto CD (both Jessops & Boots offer this service in the UK). You can then upload the CD to your PC & use the likes of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to alter the colour balance, contrast etc. til you get an image you're satisfied with.

[Astroman]

Ah, good advice, Andy. 8)

[Rob]

Your best bet is to have the negatives scanned onto CD (both Jessops & Boots offer this service in the UK). You can then upload the CD to your PC & use the likes of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to alter the colour balance, contrast etc. til you get an image you're satisfied with.

That sounds a fantastic idea!!..... will save money to boot!

Any advice / website available to help me with this project?.

Thanks

Rob

P.s can a normal scanner work to the job. we have a nice HP one at work!

[AndyMac]

You'll need a negative/transparency scanner (as opposed to a flatbed one). If you get it done by the likes of Boots or Jessops, you'll be assured that it is scanned with a top of the range, modern one (my one, for comparison, is seven years old)!

Although I had a film scanned by Jessops a couple of years ago, I can't find a link to it on their current website - though I'm sure they still offer the service.

Boots has a link at http://www.boots.com/microsites/microsite_info_template.jsp?contentId=4162#4

You could also try the likes of this company which I have used for processing my films for several years now:

http://www.the-darkroom.co.uk/index2.html (click on 'Digital' from the menu on the left).

[AndyMac]

Didn't look hard enough! :oops: Here's the Jessop's link, Rob:

http://www.jessops.com/info/dp/index.cfm?page=photocd.htm&style=